Love Is Watching Someone Die
by crabbySeer
Summary: After an argument, Natalie storms out of the house and meets an unfortunate accident, leading Lucifer to bargain with God on her behalf and say some tough goodbyes.
1. Chapter 1

"I can't believe you!"

Natalie was fiercer than Satan had ever seen her before. Red seeped into her nose and cheeks and finger tips, and if he thought it were possible for mortals, he might have seen it in her eyes too. "Girl, I—"

"No!" In her hands she held the broken remnants of a picture frame, the mangled remains of the photo dangling from the glass. Tears slid down her cheeks and onto the memory of her mother. He wasn't sure whether she was more angry or sad. "You started this thing with Michael and of all the things you could have used to hit him with, it was the one picture I have of us together! And as though that wasn't bad enough, you tell me it's just a photo of my dead mom? That her picture doesn't make her any less dead?"

"Nat, listen—"

She cut him off again. "You've done a lot of awful things to me Lucifer, but this… This is a low blow. Saying you didn't mean to or that it was an accident doesn't make it better!" She tried to say more, but the lump in her throat choked her and all that came out was a gurgling noise. Eventually she gave up talking and instead turned on her heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Satan let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding. It was another behaviour of her's that had been rubbed off on him—Breathing. There was no reason for him to do so, but he did anyways. Sometimes he caught himself doing other human things too—scratching itches that didn't exist, napping on the couch, yawning. Plainly, he had been spending too much time in the mortal world if he was starting to mimic them.

He didn't move for a long time, instead he stared at the door waiting for her to return. She needed to know that what he did, what he said, he didn't mean for it to hurt her. How was he to know? He'd never cared for anyone before. Death was meaningless to him.

An hour passed, and then two. He could feel the cold of the rain falling on her skin and the sore in her feet from walking. He couldn't understand her, why she would stay out in the rain instead of coming back home and relaxing, going back to fun and games and screwing each other over. If nothing else, he didn't know why she didn't just end the contract if she was so furious with him. It'd gone on long enough that they felt each other's pain even, and considering how much he was made to suffer by the hands of his brother, he would've pegged her for giving up long ago. Instead, she complained about the pain but held on for dear life.

He felt the biting wind on his cheek and the brief sting of a tweaked ankle. 'Now she will come home' he thought briefly, his mind on the sting and the dim following pain in his knee. A smirk just started to grace his features before he felt it.

The feeling of having his wind knocked straight out of him.

His eyes widened into bright gold orbs as the rest of the pain started to seep in—bright beacons of burning in his legs, his spine, his head, his shoulders. A tearing sensation in his calves and collarbones, the feeling of blood dripping into his eyes.

Without another moment of hesitation he was out the door, wings ripped from his back in a burning blaze of pain and fire. They lifted him gracelessly into the sky where he searched for her, any part of her, wherever she could be. It didn't take long to figure it out—he followed the ambulances and the scent of fresh blood and burning oil.

By the time he made it to where she was and changed into his other form, Natalie had been lifted onto a stretcher and was being pushed towards the waiting ambulance. He tried to run to her, but a dutiful man in a uniform put out his hand to keep him away.

"No! You have to let me see her! I need to see her right away!"

"Sorry, son. She needs to be taken to the hospital. She's lost a lot of blood, and if we don't get her there soon, she's going to die."

Stan stared at the man in abject horror, his face full of disbelief. He opened his mouth to speak, but just as he started to talk the pain in his body began to dissipate, leaving nothing behind. His head snapped to look at her, her eyes drooping and barely alive, but staring straight at him. Blood pooled in the bottom of her oxygen mask and streaked her hair. The nurses finished loading her into the ambulance and quickly drove off, towards the hospital.

"Do you need a ride to the hospital son?" The officer that held him back before put a gentle hand on his shoulder, snapping out of the trance like feeling he was in.

"No… What happened…?" He didn't need to ask, the evidence was before him. A car splattered with her blood, a crying man swearing he didn't see her, she just tripped right in front of him, broken glass. It was obvious.

The officer seemed to know that too, but he answered anyways. "The man there says he was driving along and she stumbled out in front of his car. He tried to stop but it was too late. Do you know her?"

"She's my… My sister." His shoulder's slumped in defeat; he already knew that there was nothing they could do. "I'll call our dad and let him know what happened."

The officer nodded and turned away, back to his duty and the blood being washed away on the pavement. Satan stumbled away into the nearby trees and when he was certain no one was watching, he disappeared.

"Move, Michael. I need to see Father."

Michael walked backwards in front of Lucifer, his eyes a false mask of sympathy. "There's nothing he can do, brother. You know that."

"Get out of my way."

"You know the rules! She's as good as dead and—" He was cut off by Satan's fist slamming through his teeth.

Lucifer latched his fingers into Michael's jaw and curled the fingers of his other hand into his brother's hair. "Listen to me you boot licking piece of fucking shit. I know she's dying. I know we can't bring her back. But if you think I'm going to give up because of that, you're dumber than I thought. This happened because of us brother dear, and I am not going to let go without at least trying." With that, he ripped Michael's jaw out and a significant handful of hair and tossed him unceremoniously to the side.

He knocked once before entering God's chambers. "Father."

"You killed Michael again."

"Of course I did. You knew I would."

"Yes. And I know why you're here." The man at the table looked up, eyes filled with benevolent love and the knowledge of all. "She broke contract, and now she's dying."

"She was going to die anyways. We both know that."

God smiled upon him. "She didn't do it because she thought it might get her out of her end of the contract."

Lucifer frowned. "What do you mean?"

"We are not the only ones who know she is dying, Lucifer. She knows it too, and she knows that if she can feel your pain that you can feel her's. She let you out of the contract so you wouldn't feel her die." God's smile softened. "Remarkably selfless on her part. She didn't want you to hurt."

For the first time in his life, Lucifer's heart fell, alerting him to it's existence.

"You know, of course, that there's nothing that I can do. She's too far gone, beyond even miracles now."

"I know."

"Then why are you here?" God's voice was soft and warm.

"Father, I want you to release her from her end of the contract."

God quirked an eyebrow. "This isn't like Job, is it. Not a deal, but a legitimate request."

"You put me in charge of Hell and we agreed that no one would know that we were both in on it. You told me it was necessary to judge the souls who were good enough to come to Heaven, that it was also necessary that the other angels not know so there wasn't a real uprising. I've done what you asked, and I've done it faithfully for years. I'm telling you now that she… She's not worthy of Hell. She didn't even make the contract, it was thrust upon her."

"I know, Luce. I know." God looked at His desk, His fingers laced in pensive thought.

"Please, Father. This one thing I ask, and I haven't asked for a favour in thousands of years. Ignore the technicality of the contract since she didn't make it. Let her go to Heaven. Let her see her mother again. Don't abandon her in Hell. Don't leave her to rot with the murderers and rapists."

God stared at His son for a long time, judging Lucifer's conviction. "Fine. I will bring her to Me."

Again, Lucifer let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and God smiled softly. "She will miss you."

"No she won't, I killed her."

"You didn't help. But she will miss you regardless. And you'll miss her."

Lucifer stared at the ground. "Call it a punishment for torturing Michael and my hand in her death. I will hold her memory close to remind myself of mortality, but I will never mourn her disappearance from my life. I would only make her eternity so much worse, and she's better off without me." He looked up and briefly made eye contact with his father before turning to leave. "Thank you." With that, he walked out the door and through the door of the hospital.

After a few more little lies, he was let into Natalie's room. Her face was covered in cuts and bruises, and her pulse was weak. A nurse fussed around her, checking vitals and patching the last of the wounds. He took a seat in the corner, watching as the nurse finished her work.

"She won't be able to hear you, but you can stay. We've put her in a coma for her comfort." With that, she left.

Lucifer quickly drug his chair closer to her and took her hand in his. Her fingers idly curled around his, but her eyes didn't open and she showed no signs of waking. He spoke to her anyway.

"Hey Nat. You're… You're dying. You don't have much time left, and neither do I. Once you're gone, there's no reason for me to stay here and I'll be going back home.

"We had some good times, you and I. It's… Unfortunate that it had to end like this, but it was bound to happen either way. I was expecting you to die, but what I wasn't expecting was that you wouldn't let me experience it.

"I also didn't expect to feel for you as much as I do." He paused, looking at her face and remembering all the times they had together. "I am not supposed to become attached to humans, that's why I have my job. Father chose me because he know that I could judge the souls of the dead impartially, and punish those that deserved it. Because of you though, I've gained a piece of heart that I never thought I would, and you're to blame.

"I'll keep it with me always. Call it selfishness, but I can't bear to give you up completely." He brushed a hand across her cheek as gently as possible. "You're gonna love Heaven Nat, but don't get too soft on me. Give 'em Hell, kid." He leaned in and kissed her softly, a brush of lips. He squeezed her fingers, but the fell away, her heart monitor letting out a long uninterrupted tone.

"See you later, little Gnat. Tell your mom I said Hi, and that she did a great job with you."


	2. Chapter 2

Before all else, Natalie noticed that the pain had left her completely and she felt amazingly, uncomfortably, good. After being hit by a car she figured her bones would scream with agony and her cuts would sting like someone had poured salt in them, but there was nothing. If anything, she was filled with a pleasant warmth, as though she were wrapped in a lover's worn sweater.

Her eyes refused to open at first, but after a while she managed to flutter them open, and almost immediately regretted it. On instinct her hand shot up to block the light.

"What the..."

The cuts she expected to meet her did not. Her arms were completely barren of cuts or scrapes or bruises or even scars. She tentatively stuck a foot out from under the warm blankets and found that her legs were also free from wounds.

"That is so... COOL wow, I must have been out for a year!" Her eyes lit up as she pawed her face excitedly, fingers pressing into warm flesh gingerly. After a few minutes her movements slowed though the excitement didn't dim. "I should let the doctor know that I'm awake. But how?" She looked around, taking in her surroundings.

It was clean, bordering sterile save for a few trite pictures on the wall. There were no computers or monitors that she could see, or even IVs hooked into her arms. Bright light filtered through a nearby window, a faded orange colour that made the room seem warmer then she assumed it would be. She didn't look for long before she swung her legs over the side of the bed and started to slide out. Before she could stand, she looked at what she was wearing.

"Heh, the hospital gowns look an awful lot like those toga things the angels wear..." Before she could stand the door swung open and a handful of people siphoned through, their eyes covered with blindfolds with eyes painted on the top of them. Natalie, on reflex, backed away a bit. "Little early for Halloween, isn't it? Or is it, have I been out longer than I thought?"

"They wear them so their vision isn't clouded" a soft voice spoke from the doorway. She looked up to see a dark-skinned man with a small goatee in the door. He wore the same toga as the rest, though in a shade of blue that complimented his eyes. He offered her a small reassuring smile. "I'm glad to see you're awake. How do you feel?"

"I feel great! These are some sweet digs you've got going on here!" She exclaimed over the nurse resting fingers over her wrist and another with a hand to her forehead. "Do they speak or does that cloud their judgment too?"

For a moment he said nothing, then he laughed quietly. "I see why Luce liked you. Is she good?" When one of the medics nodded, he gestured to the door and they filed out as orderly as they had come. "I assume you'd like to stretch your legs?"

"Yeah, that'd be fantastic!" She shot up with a vengeance, and only briefly wondered at the fact that she wasn't dizzy or wobbly. She broke her leg once when she was young and it took weeks for her to be able to walk normal again. "So, are you the doctor?"

"You could say that. My name is Raphael."

"Raphael? No kidding? Huh." She grinned wide as he gestured to the door. They began to walk though the quiet hallways. "So, when do I get to go home? Not that I don't like it here, but I bet my dad's worried sick. I was hit by a car right? How's he doing? Man, I hope he's alright." Her face turned solemn. "My mom was in an accident pretty similar and he's probably having 'Nam flashbacks."

Raphael was silent for several moments before responding. He slowed to a stop and turned to face her. "You can't go home. Don't you know where you are?" When she didn't respond he continued. "You're in Heaven, Natalie."

For a moment she just stared, but then she laughed and wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. "Oh yeah, sure! Heaven! Don't josh me like that man." It was Raphael's turn to be silent, and after a moment she continued. "Look bro, I can't go to Heaven, so for real, where am I at, and when can I go home?"

"Natalie, you're dead. The car killed you." He continued to speak over her falling face and the dawning realization sweeping over her features. "Lucifer bargained with Father on your behalf, and now you're here with us. I don't know the details; Father is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to anything that has to do with Luce. As for your father, he's doing alright. It hit him pretty hard, but there were a lot of people who went to your funeral to tell him what a great person you were. When he saw how many lives you had touched...Well, he broke down at first, but I took the liberty of easing the pain in his heart. He's doing alright."

"But... Why?" Natalie was stuck in a spiral of emotions, spinning violently towards the ground and pulling up at the last second. Her heart felt like a bird dodging cars for fun. "Why would Satan bargain for me of all people? I thought he hated me."

The angel started walking again, his pace slow and his eyes fixed on a point in the distance. "I could not say what he was trying to accomplish, but what I can say is that it came from a good place. Lucifer, for all of his faults, is not the monster he is made out to be." Raphael's footsteps sounded out in the quiet, a gentle tapping that mimicked the beating of the girl's heart. "He hasn't spoken to any of us since you died. He ripped out Michael's jaw and spoke to Father, and from there he went to see you. After that, he retired back to the underworld. From what I understand, he hasn't spoken to any of his underlings either."

"When can I see him?"

"I don't know that you can; that isn't my jurisdiction. You're not an angel, you can't move around like we do between planes. You might ask Michael later, but I'm not sure he'd want to take you to Lucifer or vice versa. Frankly, Michael's been crowing that things have quieted down. It's best not to dwell on it now though. Something might be able to be arranged later, if you still need closure."

Natalie felt bottomed out, like someone had scooped some part of her out and dumped it before she could get an idea of what was being removed. "Yeah... I guess we'll see how it goes."

"In the mean time, there's someone who's been looking forward to seeing you." They rounded a corner and before Natalie could get a full view of the new venue, she was crushed in a hug.

"Oh Nats! Just look at you oh my gosh I could just die! Well, I guess maybe not haha."

Natalie's ears perked at a far distant familiar voice and looked up just as she was pulled away, the dawning realization and a wide grin spreading across her face. "Mom?!"

"Baby girl! Look at you, you were just a tiny thing when I saw you last! I mean, I watched you grow up but it's not exactly the same as having you here. Don't get me wrong, I wish you weren't here... Well not like that, I mean I want you here, but not dead here..."

"Mom!" Natalie wrapped her arms tight around her long dead mother and held on for life. "Oh mom, it's so good to see you! I thought I was never gonna see you again and here you are and..." Tears rolled down her face and spread across the fabric of her mom's toga.

Raphael watched for a few moments as they caught up, hand in hand and babbling excitedly before deciding it'd be best to leave them to themselves. He backed away quietly and walked away back towards the opposite side of the hospital.

"You know you're going to have to talk to him and let him know she's here."

"Not if I can help it." Michael watched the two from the reflection in a door window.

"You won't be able to. There's something there, and if you refuse her for too long it will not end well. She is only temporarily quelled from seeing her mother, but it will not last. You know this." Raphael watched Michael's face change-his mouth pull down into a small frown, his foot jitter, his crossed arms clench.

"Yeah, you're probably right, but you can't blame me. Last time I tried to talk to him I got my jaw ripped out, remember? How do you think he's going to react to me coming into his territory? For any reason? Maybe if I bring him a pie or something he'll let me get more than two words in before he stabs me."

"You're worried about her."

"Of course I am!" Michael's eyes flicked to his brother's before returning to the reflection in the window. "Her affection for him is unhealthy at best. It's like she forgets that he's the devil!" He pouted. "And here I am, nice as can be and she won't even talk to me! I was her friend first."

Despite himself, Raphael smiled. "Friend is a strong word, don't you think? She was just one of many. I don't think you need to be worried either way though." Raphael walked forward and rested his hand on Michael's shoulder. "She will be fine regardless. I doubt Lucifer would harm her, and if he tried anything you could always pay him back for that jaw surgery." He let the words sink in for a second before walking away. "She may beat you to it though-There's a fire in that one."

Fire is what Michael was worried about.


	3. Chapter 3

Time had passed, though how much Natalie couldn't tell. Sleep was a long distant irritant that she vaguely remembered putting up with and no longer needed. Eating was much the same, though the longer she loitered the more she found herself idly nibbling on honey drizzled fruits to pass the time. She was, to put it mildly, restless.

Despite numerous attempts she couldn't catch Michael to try to talk him into taking her to see Satan. Every time she came close she could see a glint in his eye before he quickly disappeared. What she needed was a better plan, and she figured that she had one, Michael be damned.

"Hey mom, how do you watch people from up here? You mentioned you watched me grow up." The gears in her head turned as she popped a strawberry in her mouth. Her eyes were unfocused as she chewed.

"There's a kind of edge not far from here where the dead can pass the time checking on the living. Who is it you wanted to check on dear?"

"I was just wondering how a friend of mine was doing. I don't think he took my death too well, and I wanted to make sure he was okay." It wasn't technically a lie. "How do I get there?"

Carla pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen and carefully doodled the directions. "You'll want to be careful when you go though dear and make sure you don't get too close to the edge. You don't need to be right up on it to see, does that make sense? There should be angels nearby though in case anything happens."

"Thanks mom!" Natalie took the paper and gingerly tucked it into her toga before hugging her mom.

"No worries squiddo. Be careful! Check on your dad for me."

"Of course!" With that, she bounded out the house.

Carla's instructions weren't exactly the clearest, but it didn't take too much to figure out where she needed to be. What did surprise her were the lack of people filing about-Only a couple, people she recognized as having died after she did. One was mumbling something that sounded like answers to a test.

The closer that Natalie came to the edge, the muddier the clouds seemed to get before a watery vision of Satan came into view. At first she was surprised, but the shock ebbed away quickly, replaced by an empty feeling in her chest. His head was rested on a fist and he stared out, unblinking, towards some unnamed area. She could hear a voice speaking to him, aggravated, but couldn't quite make out the words. Eventually the voice seemed to give up, ending on a defeated kind of note. She took a tentative step closer but a hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"Not so close, you might fall off the edge."

She started to apologize on instinct, but stopped as she turned. "Hey! It's you! You're Satan's brother, right?"

Gabriel seemed taken aback for a second or two, but his features quickly eased. "Well, technically we're all Satan's brother, but yes. Has he quit moping yet?"

"How'd you know?"

He chuckled. "Lucky guess. So?"

She looked back at Satan's face, eyebrows drawn together and eyes distant. "How long has he been like that?"

"Best as we can tell, he hasn't moved since he went back home. It's been a long time since anyone's seen him quite like that."

"Home? Don't you mean 'Hell'?" Natalie turned back to look at Gabe and caught a glimpse of Michael skulking behind a nearby building. She could feel a tiny spark of anger brewing in her chest, but she quelled it down.

"Oh no. He himself doesn't live in Hell, not directly anyways. More so, he houses Hell if that makes sense." Gabriel looked out at the cloudy expanse, but what he was looking at, Natalie couldn't say.

"Wait, what do you mean?" Her attention was snapped back in his direction. "Like, he IS Hell?"

"I guess you could say that. The damned live within him as his punishment for disobeying. Before he fell it was put inside him, and has festered there ever since. Michael says it's what makes him so bitter, but Luce was always a little feisty." He saw, and chose to ignore, her eyes darting to Michael and the spark of anger that laid inside of them. "Raphael has suggested more than once that there's more to it than we know however, so I don't particularly feel as though I can judge how it all played out."

"How does this cloud work anyways?" She turned back to Gabriel before looking back out at Satan, who hadn't moved at all. "Can you talk to someone through it?"

"Father created this when Satan first fell so those who had been judged worthy could check on their families. You could theoretically speak to someone through here, though it would take a lot of energy and even then they might not listen."

"I see." She stared for a few more seconds before turning to Gabe and offered him the biggest grin she could muster. "Could you take me to see Satan?"

He seemed taken aback. "Me? Oh... No, I don't think I could." His eyes darted back to the cloud where he briefly watched Anthea talking to a very upset Festus. Blood seeped into his cheeks even as she begged. "No, no I really couldn't. I haven't been to the underworld in years. It's not because of you! I promise."

Her face fell back. "Yeah, I kind of figured. And since," her voice raised to a near shout as she glared pointedly in Michael's direction "NO ONE ELSE WILL TAKE ME, looks like I'm out of luck."

Gabe's eyes widened and he turned to look at Michael, who was grimacing and still trying to hide as though she never spotted him. "Uh, yes, it appears to be that way."

"Welp." She looked back at Satan and furrowed her brows in concentration. She could see his eyes widen just a smidgen in the reflection before it started to waver. "Good thing I never relied on luck."

And before Gabriel or Michael could do anything, she took a flying leap at the cloud and crashed through in a nose dive straight for the earth below.


	4. Chapter 4

There were many things that Natalie thought about as her body flipped through the air, descending quickly towards the ground:

One. Jesus, it was cold. Ice crystals formed near her eyes and ears and she could feel her lips splitting.

Two. The angels were not following her, and she wasn't sure if she was relieved, or terrified.

Three. What happens to humans who fall? Can you die twice?

Four. What if everyone was just pulling her leg, and Lucifer didn't actually hear her?

Five. Can you die twice?

She furiously wiped at her face and the tears clinging to her lashes. Too late for all that now, she already took the dive, and whatever would come, would come. She just really hoped that "whatever" wasn't "death."

As she had already learned, death was a real drag.

The fall and height robbed the air from her lungs and she wondered briefly if that she, like the angels, didn't need to breathe. Judging by the way her head felt, that was not the case.

_Well, at least if I'm unconscious, I won't feel the ground hit me._

Before she lost consciousness, she kicked her legs out to try to slow her mad decent. It was the only chance she had.

In the end, she didn't feel the her body hit the ground. She also didn't feel Lucifer pulling her into his arms, or the way his beating wings burned her, or even his hand holding her head into the crook of his neck, his fingers buried in her hair.

"Great, yeah, this is exactly what we need. This chick again! Didn't master get rid of her? I thought she died." Natalie could hear Festus growling from her thinning cloud of sleep.

_I did die. If you die twice, do you go to Hell? No, that's not right. Where am I?_

"Festus, calm yourself. Miss Natalie is his guest, and you shouldn't speak poorly of her. Best case scenario, you hurt her feelings."

"Yeah, because I really care about some dumb human's feelings! Some dumb human that jumped from Heaven no less!"

"Worst case scenario is he hears you, and rips your larynx out." That was Lucifer's voice, farther away. Quieter. Edged. "You fled Heaven too, idiot."

"I'm... I'm sorry... I'll..." She couldn't make out the last of his words before they were silenced. From what? She couldn't say, though she was sure she heard a door closing. She was in a building then.

"How is she?" Lucifer's voice was unnaturally quiet. She wanted to yell that she was fine, but she couldn't quite maneuver her tongue. No matter how she tried, it wouldn't cooperate with her.

A short lived rustling, a hand on her forehead, an inaudible hum. "She's alive. Well, not destroyed would be a better response. She's got some frostbite in places, and a few burns. I've got her bandaged up as best as I can, but she's healing very slowly." Anthea's voice was soft but filled with worry. "I'm not sure if it's because she's so far from Heaven, or because her injuries were so severe."

Lucifer huffed. "I don't care about the semantics of how you do it, but I want her fixed. Take her back to Heaven if you have to, where she should have fucking stayed in the first place."

"You would know better then most that sometimes, falling is your only option."

"And just what do you mean by that?" Natalie could hear the warning in his voice, like a caged animal stuck in his throat ready to break free.

"Well, master..." Anthea started slowly. "You were around her longer than any of us. You should know better than anyone that Heaven would bore her. And, anyone of us could tell you what it was you refused to see."

"And that is?"

"That she would not be satisfied in Heaven without you there."

Despite the truth of the words, Natalie wanted to shout. _I'm right here guys, there's no need to talk about me like I'm already gone! Also what the Hell Anthea, rude. You don't just talk about someone's feelings like that!_ Instead, she was treated to Satan's scoff.

"Please, Anthea. She'd be alive right now if it weren't for me. Idiot probably tripped and fell just like the time she fell off the roof." _Rude!_

"At least you caught her this time."

There was silence for a few seconds and Natalie feared the worst. "Yeah, I guess I did. Maybe when she wakes up she'll learn to stay away from high places."

"Perhaps. I think for now it'd be best if we let her be to rest. I might be able to remove some of her bandages tomorrow; her ears are getting a little better and it'd be easier to feed her without them wrapped around her jaw. In the mean time, I'll try to make some contact with a healer and see if we can't get her fixed up a bit."

Bandages. That would explain why she couldn't talk. She wondered briefly if they were over her eyes too before her thoughts were interupted by Lucifer again.

"I told you, I don't care about the semantics. Just get her fixed."

"Yes, master." Natalie could hear Satan's footsteps retreating and a door shutting in the distance. A few seconds passed before Anthea spoke again. "I hope you don't mind me speaking on your behalf, Miss Natalie, but I think a gentle shove will help him in the long run. Let me take some of those bandages off for you."

Sure enough, a bandage was slowly removed from her eyes and then from around her jaw. "How'd you know I was awake?"

"I am a Succubus, Miss Natalie. It's in my very nature to know how you are faring." She smiled gently. "I'm sorry I didn't remove the bandages earlier; I wanted to drive a point home."

"Which is?"

"Hopefully you don't feel that I'm overstepping my bounds, but obviously you jumped for a reason, right? You must have known that you wouldn't be able to interact with humans, so that would mean you came for someone else."

"Well, no one mentioned I couldn't talk to the other humans but it makes sense? I mean, ghost stories have always been a thing so it's not like grandma could take a plunge and help her grand-kids with their history homework or something." She watched as Anthea mixed some herbs in with a bowl of some unknown concoction as she spoke. "How bad am I anyways, if you were lying?"

"You're not quite so bad off really. I already did a bit of digging and was given some things to help you out. The angels wanted to take you back, but I convinced them to leave you for now as I am a sufficient caretaker. Here. You must be starving." She handed Natalie the bowl, the contents of which were less then appetizing in appearance but smelled delicious. "One of my old consorts taught me that recipe, so it should be flavourful enough. At anyrate, the angels allowed you to stay for the time being, and graciously supplied me with some medicine to help your progress.

"You've been out for a few days now, which isn't that surprising. Even Lucifer did not move for the first few days of his fall. You were lucky he heard you and ran to you so quickly." She paused, eyes distant. "It was the first time anyone had seen him show a sign of life since you died."

As Anthea spoke, Natalie gulped down her soup which was every bit as delicious as it smelled. She could feel the heat seep into her chest and into her limbs, which still felt cold despite the warmth of the room she was in. "So, you let him think that I was worse than I am to do, what exactly?"

"Miss Natalie, surely you've realized by now that he cares for you."

"Sure, he lived with me for how long? If he didn't at least care a little, I'd be kind of concerned."

"That's not what I mean, and I think you know it. You changed something in him, but he is still Lucifer. He's fighting it, I think, trying to quell whatever it is you sparked. So, he stays in his room and doesn't speak, doesn't interact with us. He hasn't even been to a bar! He sits and stares and ignores, trying to tamp out that budding fire within him, but it's already spreading. Even now he's trying to douse it." When Natalie finished her food, Anthea took the bowl and set it aside. She stared hard into Natalie's eyes. "Take my word for it Miss, there is nothing worse then being away from the person you care the most for. Instead of accepting his feelings and embracing them, he's trying to avoid them, or kill them outright, and I don't think he should."

"So, what you're trying to tell me is that the one and only Devil, Mephistopheles, Lord of Flies, has a thing for me?"

"Don't trivialize it."

"But that's what you're saying."

"Yes."

The ginger laughed. "Oh man, the King of Hell's got a crush on me, that's so cute!"

"Miss Natalie..."

"No no, that's adorable. Big ole toughie's got a crush! He's got a soft spot after all, glory Hallelujah!"

"Miss Natalie, stop." The seriousness in Anthea's eyes quelled the mirth in the room like dowsing a lantern. It was almost frightening. "I don't think you realize just how serious this is. We aren't like humans. This isn't just some little schoolyard crush that he'll get over in a few days-I can tell you right now that this is a first."

"No way. Do you know how many hookers he hired thinking I didn't know about it?"

"There is a significant difference between physical love and emotional love Natalie. I can guarantee you that this has never happened to him before. And, I can't speak for you, but there had to have been a reason beyond impulse that lead you to jumping from Eden; No one gives up perfection on a whim." She stared hard for a few more seconds before breaking eye contact and picking up the dirty bowl and bandages. "I'll leave you for now, you should get some more rest. Think about it though." With that she left, closing the door quietly behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

Natalie sat in the quiet of the room for hours, thinking. Her thoughts chased each other around, punctuated incessantly with boredom and a vague sense of worry.

_I obviously didn't think this through. What am I doing? What did I think was going to happen? Man, if he really DOES have a thing for me, what do I do then? Why didn't the angels follow me? I'm hungry. How do I broach this topic? How much has changed? These blankets are itchy. How long have I been here? How long will I be here? Where exactly is 'here'?_

Her cheeks burned like a pyre as she thought, trying to avoid the topic that she knew Anthea was hoping she'd find an answer for: _But how do you feel about him?_

She wasn't sure she could find the answer, even if she tried. She had acted as she almost always did, on blind faith spurned by a pinch of boredom and a tablespoon of loneliness. Despite his arguments to the contrary, Lucifer was, for all intents and purposes, her best friend.

_Yeah, well, what does Anthea know anyway? It's not like Stan... Lucifer has ever been particularly happy to see me. She's got it all wrong_.

Eventually, she tried to shove those thoughts away. Beating them to death wasn't doing her any good, and she had grown tired from the extensive self-question-and-answer session and the hunger growing in her stomach. She rolled over and drew the blankets up firmly under her chin, forcefully focused on how delicious a turkey sandwich would be, or how delicious one of her dad's specialty meatloaves would taste, regardless of how little she liked it normally.

No matter what dreams of dinners eased through her head though, she couldn't quite get rid of the nagging little voice that told her that snuggling the blankets was a poor substitute for a warm body.

Not far from where Natalie was facing her own crisis, Lucifer settled down into a recliner with eyebrows drawn and suspiciously red cheeks.

_What the fuck does Anthea know anyways? I should send her and her little pipsqueak friend out on a suicide mission. 'Sometimes the only option is to fall' my ass. _His lips drew into a sneer. He didn't like the feeling brewing in his chest that twisted the area where his heart should be, or the way he couldn't shake the image of Natalie bound up in bandages and reeking of burn paste. He couldn't articulate why, but somehow it felt better to think that she had tripped and fell instead of willingly throwing herself from Heaven to see him.

_Obviously she was calling for help. "You better catch me"? That's not... She didn't jump. She just fell. She probably didn't even mean for me to hear her; I bet she was talking to one of the others. Michael probably._

The memory of the burns lashed across her legs and sides wheedled into his head, latching on and refusing to let go. _The injuries I gave her, with these flawed wings. Too hot on her too cold skin. So cold._

When he first grabbed her, he had thought she was dead. It took longer than he cared to admit for him to remember that she already was dead, and even longer for him to remember that no, she couldn't die twice. She could be broken beyond repair, but it was okay, he caught her in time.

He didn't have time to check her upon returning to the Underworld, his home away from home. Anthea almost immediately took her away and shoved him off, claiming too many in the room would hurt the process. Instead, he was assigned to his room, pacing and growling and breaking knick knacks until he was finally summoned to see her.

Even now it didn't take long for him to start pacing again, stepping on the shattered remains of saint statues. _She should have stayed where she was. Safe. Loved._

_Loved._

He stopped in his tracks, jaw and heart clenched. For a few seconds he struggled to breathe before remembering that he didn't have to, he wasn't a human. He'd be fine.

_What if Anthea was right? What if she did decide to stay where she felt safe and loved?_ His eyes widened and his cheeks burned anew, but only briefly. The fluttering in his chest (which he determined that he did not care for at all) died down and left him feeling numb in a way that he hadn't felt since his brothers turned on him. _No, of course not. I am the monster that killed her. She tripped, end of story. And once she's fixed up and moving again, she'll be ready to go straight back home with her family and know better next time to avoid the Gates._

_And it'll be for the best._

_Last thing I need is for this dumb kid hanging around. I've got work to do; I don't need her distracting me with her stupid face and her dumb cheer._

Re-steeled, he set off to the nearest fast food joint to pick up some food. The cold air against his bare chest refreshed him, but could not distract him from the vague disappointment he felt. _If this is what love is like, the humans can keep it._


	6. Chapter 6

Natalie stirred awake at the sound of a door creaking open and then clicking shut. For a second, she panicked. _Where am I? Why is everything so dark? Isn't Heaven generally brighter than… oh._ Memories flooded back to her as her heart rate evened back into something resembling normal, and the scent of coffee and cheap hash browns wafted into her nostrils.

"I see you're awake. Good."

At Lucifer's voice she sat, wiping the sleep out of her eyes and un-blurring the man before her. "Stan! Er, Lucifer? I'm not sure what I should call you to be honest. Ooh! You brought breakfast!"

Her crackling voice sent another jolt of guilt through him before he smothered it with words. "Doesn't really matter what name you call me. Here." He tossed the bag at her feet and placed the coffee on her bedside table before taking a seat in one of the nearby chairs. It didn't take her long to dig into the breakfast, pulling out an egg burrito before shamelessly shoving half of it into her mouth and moaning around it. Before she could speak around the chunks of food, Satan spoke again, pointedly looking away from her. "Yeah, figured you were probably hungry, and you might as well eat up while you still think you need it. I'm not sure when the angels will be here to pick you up, so get it in while you can."

Natalie was half way through a flattened hash brown when she heard what he said. She swallowed thickly. "Pick… me up?"

"You heard me. They would have taken you earlier but I hear Anthea bargained to keep you here while you 'healed' or some such nonsense. They're not going to leave some kid who fell out of Heaven with Satan, no matter what history she may have had with him. You're lucky I heard you, you know." He idly tapped on the end table as he continued to bore a hole in the wall with his stare. "You wouldn't have died of course, but you definitely wouldn't be whole."

She quietly nibbled on her food while he spoke, but scoffed about halfway through. "Yeah, okay but what do they do with 'some kid' that jumped out of Heaven?"

That caught his attention. His head snapped in her direction, eyes wide, while she took another large bite of her breakfast and stared him down. "What do you mean 'jumped'?"

"Look man, I know I'm clumsy and all and that's kind of a going joke or something 'oh that Natalie, probably fell out of Heaven like she fell off the roof!'" she threw her arm in the air as she spoke, waving them around as she spoke in a lower voice. "But I'm not completely inept! Besides, that one angel was there… Gabe? Yeah, Gabe, he was there and kept pulling me back. I couldn't have tripped out of Heaven if I wanted to!"

The whole time she spoke, Satan kept silent, eyes wide and almost staring through her. A red tint started to rise to his cheeks, a feeling he was growing to loathe. "You… Jumped."

Natalie was pulled from her tirade by his quiet statement, barely above a whisper. "Huh?"

His eyes focused in on her and he could feel a flame sparking to life in his chest. "You jumped."

"Uh, yeah? I mean, even Michael couldn't have misconstrued it."

Something brittle in him broke. "You mean to tell me, that you looked around Heaven, a place that I had to _bargain to get you into, _and you _turned it down?_" His voice rose with every word until he was nearly yelling. It was a personal insult! How could she live in paradise, a paradise she _didn't even earn_, and snub it? "What kind of half-thought out bullshit do you think you're trying to pull? You know what happens to people who jump? Do you have any idea-"

"_I missed you!"_ He snapped his jaw shut, reduced to silence and wide eyes as he stared at her again, her face flushed from part embarrassment, part hurt, part rage. _Anthea was wrong._ Once she saw she had his attention, she continued. "I didn't just _turn down_ Heaven. It was great! It was wonderful seeing my mom again! But it was boring… and lonely." Her voice settled again, tired from the exertion of yelling and her wounds crying out in indignation. "I tried asking the other angels if they'd bring me to see you, but either they refused or avoided me. I didn't know what else to do, so I did the one thing that usually seems to work. I took a leap of faith."

For the first time in a long time, longer than he could even remember, Satan wasn't sure what to say. He had convinced himself of an accident and was faced with deliberate intent, and he didn't know how to respond to it. "Sometimes the only option is to fall."

"That's what Anthea said, right?" Natalie scratched the back of her head and sipped the coffee, glad for its warmth against her cold fingers. "Well, in this case she was right. Trust me. I tried to catch Michael a hundred times at least but the butthead kept evading me." She nearly dropped her coffee at the sound of Satan's barked out laughter. All at once the serious mood was dispelled.

"Butthead… That's exactly it!" The memory of a painting he had conned Raphael to paint of Michael sprang to the forefront of his mind and he had to wipe a tear from his eye. "That's what I've been saying for years!"

His laughter was infectious and Natalie couldn't help herself but to giggle along. "No joke! He was less an angel and more a leprechaun! Every time I tried to catch him he'd disappear like he was never there! And then I could hear him whining around the corner constantly! 'Why does she even want to see him? Boo hoo I was her friend first wah."

Her imitation of his brother had him in stitches again for a few moments, stress and fear slipping away with every chuckle, replaced with a strange warmth he couldn't quite place but felt an awful lot like pride. Distantly, he imagined what his followers would think if they saw him laugh without the presence of a mauled body. They'd probably think he'd gone soft.

Natalie took another sip of her coffee before holding the cup to her chest. Once Lucifer's laughter died down, she continued. "Mom told me about the gates and I decided to go see what it was all about. At first I thought I could maybe just talk to you through them but that thought was quickly dashed, so I did the next best thing."

Satan snorted. "Only you would think falling from Heaven and freezing for it was 'the next best thing.' What were you even thinking? What did you expect to happen?"

"I don't really know, to be honest." She sipped her coffee again before setting it down and folding her hands in her lap. "I just wanted to talk to you again. You're important to me and I _know _that doesn't really mean a whole lot when you got thrust into a contract with no warning, but there was a lot left that I didn't get to say. I didn't get to thank you for any of the fun times or for letting me go to Heaven even though I didn't deserve it. I mean, I know that most of the time I was more of a pain in your side than anything, but I guess I just wanted you to know that I… I don't know. It was a wild ride from start to finish, but I wouldn't trade it for anything."

For the second time in a long time, Satan wasn't sure what to say. He felt betrayed by himself, both that he didn't say what was immediately on his mind and because that first thought was 'every part of that contract was Hell,' because in the long run, it wasn't. It was tedious and oftentimes dull and by far the most degrading thing that had ever happened to him, but that wasn't her fault. She did the best she could, even if that was what made it degrading.

After a long while, he spoke. "Look, kid. I'm not really sure what to say here, because I've never been one for interpersonal relationships. I don't do 'friends' and my interaction with mortals is generally short lived and damnation oriented. You're constantly looking for meaning in your short lives, trying to find purpose or anything that would tell you that your life was worth it, or well spent, or whatever it is that you try to convince yourself of. I've heard hundreds of existential crises from every type of gutter punk and drunkard you can imagine, and frankly I can't particularly understand what any of that means." He paused for a moment, trying to figure out what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. He was glad that she hadn't tried to interrupt him because he wasn't sure he could get it out if she did.

"That contract was Hell, but not because of you. Yeah, you were irritating and I felt like a caged animal, but you did what you could kid. When you got hit by the car, it was like I got hit by the car. And I don't mean because I could feel it. I've never needed to breathe, but it felt like choking. All I could think was that I didn't want you to disappear, that your life mattered to me. For the first time ever, I knew what it was like to care about what happened to someone. So I made sure you'd go to Heaven where you'd be loved and not fade away into Hell, even if it meant I wouldn't see your stupid face anymore."

It was Natalie's turn to stare wide-eyed, Satan's confession settling on her shoulders like a warm sweater. After a few seconds of silence she pulled the blankets off her legs and swung them over the side of the bed, Lucifer barely having a second to register what was happening before she stumbled into him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her face into his neck. "You big oaf."

His heart shuddered again, reminding him of its presence before he settled his arms around her, wary of her burns. "You better not be getting snot on me, I swear I'll drag you back to Heaven myself."

"I'd jump again."

It was the last jolt his heart needed, and it stayed alive; beating in time with hers. "You won't have to."


End file.
